"It
is the year 1526. The four ships of the Loaisa expedition have just entered the
Pacific from the Strait of Magellan on their way to the East Indies for a cargo
of spices. A storm blows up. The ships are separated. One, the caravel San
Lesmes with 50 or so men on board is never seen again.
"The new book traces
the crew of the San Lesmes and their descendants to various atolls of the
Tuamotu Archipelago, to the Society and Austral Islands -- even to distant
Easter Island and New Zealand.
"It argues that the last prehistoric settlement
of New Zealand was made when some of the San Lesmes crew came upon the North
Island in trying to return to Spain from the vicinity of Tahiti by sailing
along the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. It claims that many Maori of today
are descended from them.
"The book tells also how a number of present-day Easter
islanders with no known non-Easter Island ancestors have been found to be
carriers of certain genes that are peculiar to Europeans and especially common
among Basques.
"In a nutshell, The Lost Caravel Re-explored throws unexpected
new light on the prehistory of several widely separated Polynesian islands and
challenges many long held views on that subject."
-- From the back cover
Two of the four iron cannons that were found embedded in the reef on the eastern side of Amanu -- see Chapter 1,
page 4 -- were on display at the Musée de Tahiti et des Îles at Pointe
des Pêcheurs, Punaauia, Tahiti, on October 31, 2014, when Mythiot had occasion to photograph them.
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